It’s fall, the time when leaves fall down to the ground.
And it’s one of the most glorious falls I’ve ever had.
A sudden burst of freezing air transformed the leaves
from the ordinary green of life to extraordinary yellow, purple, and red.
The leaves are falling in countless, miraculous hues,
Shouting their refusal to die unremembered.
The green of summer fades revealing the glory hidden within.
And yet they’ll soon all fade to black and gray,
the colors of rot and of decay.
They’ll feed another fall’s future leaves,
repeating the endless autumnal reincarnation —
from green to glory to gray and back to green,
dying again and yet again.
You, my friend, though, are not the same.
When you died, your colors also changed.
The drab colors of flesh and hair faded
so your true colors — your true glory —
would be revealed.
Now you shine like a star in the universe,
in colors too bright for mortal eyes,
in shades only angels see.
God gives immortality to the mortal,
life to one who but seems to die,
and strips out the ordinary
leaving the extraordinary behind.
You fell down.
But not to death and gray and black.
Not to rot and decay.
No, your colors — gifts from the Maker — shine forever,
remembered forever,
as you fall down before the Maker of Every Shade
to worship and serve, never to die or even to fade.
